Why doesn't an external drive mount?

I am trying to do backup, and the external drive won't mount. I bought a SATA 250GB drive and attached it to the Powerbook using the USB port. The light shows up on the enclosure but there is no hard drive that appears on the desktop. Also it doesn't show up on Disk Utility.
Is it because this is the wrong sort of drive?
I connected the external drive to the MacBook Air to see if it would mount there and it doesn't show up there either on the desktop.

Is this a bus-powered USB drive? If so, it's demanding too much power, and the USB port can't meet the demand. You'll need to provide it with an AC power supply, if it can be so equipped, or plug it into an AC-powered USB hub instead of directly into the computer.

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